The thermometer marks barely one degree above freezing, the sky is
covered with ominous white clouds, the air is harsh and piercing; what
can induce Signor Odoardo, at nine o'clock on such a morning, to stand
in his study window? It is true that Signor Odoardo is a vigorous man,
in the prime of life, but it is never wise to tempt Providence by
needlessly risking one's health. But stay—I begin to think that I
have found a clue to his conduct. Opposite Signor Odoardo's window is
the window of the Signora Evelina, and Signora Evelina has the same
tastes as Signor Odoardo. She too is taking the air, leaning against
the window-sill in her dressing-gown, her fair curls falling upon her
forehead and tossed back every now and then by a pretty movement of
her head. The street is so narrow that it is easy to talk across from
one side to the other, but in such weather as this the only two
windows that stand open are those of Signora Evelina and Signor
Odoardo.

There is no denying the fact: Signora Evelina, who within the last
few weeks has taken up her abode across the way, is a very fascinating
little widow. Her hair is of spun gold, her skin of milk and roses,
her little turned-up nose, though assuredly not Grecian, is much more
attractive than if it were; she has the most dazzling teeth in the
most kissable mouth; her eyes are transparent as a cloudless sky,
and—well, she knows how to use them. Nor is this the sum total of her
charms: look at the soft, graceful curves of her agile,
well-proportioned figure; look at her little hands and feet! After
all, one hardly wonder that Signor Odoardo runs the risk of catching
his death of cold, instead of closing the window and warming himself
at the stove which roars so cheerfully within. It is rather at Signora
Evelina that I wonder; for, though Signer Odoardo is not an
ill-looking man, he is close upon forty, while she is but twenty-four.
So young, and already a widow—poor Signora Evelina! It is true that
she has great strength of character; but six months have elapsed since
her husband's death, and she is resigned to it already, though the
deceased left her barely enough to keep body and soul together.
Happily Signora Evelina is not encumbered with a family; she is alone
and independent, and with those eyes, that hair, that little upturned
nose, she ought to have no difficulty in finding a second husband. In
fact, there is no harm in admitting that Signora Evelina has
contemplated the possibility of a second marriage, and that if the
would-be bridegroom is not in his first youth—why, she is prepared to
make the best of it. In this connection it is perhaps not
uninstructive to note that Signor Odoardo is in comfortable
circumstances, and is himself a widower. What a coincidence!

Well, then, why don't they marry—that being the customary
denouement in such cases?

Why don't they marry? Well—Signor Odoardo is still undecided. If
there had been any hope of a love-affair I fear that his indecision
would have vanished long ago. Errare humanum est. But Signora Evelina
is a woman of serious views; she is in search of a husband, not of a
flirtation. Signora Evelina is a person of great determination; she
knows how to turn other people's heads without letting her own be
moved a jot. Signora Evelina is deep; deep enough, surely, to gain her
point. If Signor, Odoardo flutters about her much longer he will!
singe his wings; things cannot go on in this; way. Signor Odoardo's
visits are too frequent; and now, in addition, there are the
conversations from the window. It is time for a decisive step to be
taken, and Signor Odoardo is afraid that he may find himself taking
the step before he is prepared to; this very day, perhaps, when he
goes to call on the widow.

The door of Signor Odoardo's study is directly opposite the window
in which he is standing, and the opening of this door is therefore
made known to him by a violent draught.

As he turns a sweet voice says:

"Good-bye, papa dear; I'm going to school."

"Good-bye, Doretta," he answers, stooping to kiss a pretty little
maid of eight or nine; and at the same instant Signora Evelina calls
out from over the way:

"Good-morning, Doretta!"

Doretta, who had made a little grimace on discovering her papa in
conversation with his pretty neighbor, makes another as she hears
herself greeted, and mutters reluctantly, "Good-morning."

Then, with her little basket on her arm, she turns away slowly to
join the maid-servant who is waiting for her in the hall.

"I am SO fond of that child," sighs Signora Evelina, with the
sweetest inflexion in her voice, "but she doesn't like me at all!"

"What an absurd idea!...Doretta is a very self-willed child."

Thus Signor Odoardo; but in his heart of hearts he too is convinced
that his little daughter has no fondness for Signora Evelina.

Meanwhile, the cold is growing more intense, and every now and then
a flake of snow spins around upon the wind. Short of wishing to be
frozen stiff, there is nothing for it but to shut the window.

"It snows," says Signora Evelina, glancing upward.

"Oh, it was sure to come."

"Well—I must go and look after my household. Au revoir—shall I
see you later?"

"I hope to have the pleasure—"

"Au revoir, then."

Signora Evelina closes the window, nods and smiles once more
through the pane, and disappears.

Signor Odoardo turns back to his study, and perceiving how cold it
has grown, throws some wood on the fire, and, kneeling before the door
of the stove, tries to blow the embers into a blaze. The flames leap
up with a merry noise, sending bright flashes along the walls of the
room.

Outside, the flakes continue to descend at intervals. Perhaps,
after all, it is not going to be a snowstorm.

Signor Odoardo paces up and down the room, with bent head and hands
thrust in his pockets. He is disturbed, profoundly disturbed. He feels
that he has reached a crisis in his life; that in a few days, perhaps
in a few hours, his future will be decided. Is he seriously in love
with Signora Evelina? How long has he known her? Will she be sweet and
good like THE OTHER? Will she know how to be a mother to Doretta?

There is a sound of steps in the hall; Signor Odoardo pauses in the
middle of the room. The door re-opens, and Doretta rushes up to her
father, her cheeks flushed, her hood falling over her forehead, her
warm coat buttoned up to her chin, her hands thrust into her muff.

"It is snowing and the teacher has sent us home."

She tosses off her hood and coat and goes up to the stove.

"There is a good fire, but the room is cold," she exclaims.

As a matter of fact, the window having stood open for half an hour,
the thermometer indicates but fifty degrees.

"Papa," Doretta goes on, "I want to stay with you all day long
to-day."

"And suppose your poor daddy has affairs of his own to attend to?"

"No, no, you must give them up for to-day."

And Doretta, without waiting for an answer, runs to fetch her
books, her doll, and her work. The books are spread out on the desk,
the doll is comfortably seated on the sofa, and the work is laid out
upon a low stool.

"Ah," she cries, with an air of importance, "what a mercy that
there is no school to-day! I shall have time to go over my lesson. Oh,
look how it snows!"

It snows indeed. First a white powder, fine but thick, and whirled
in circles by the wind, beats with a dry metallic sound against the
window- panes; then the wind drops, and the flakes, growing larger,
descend silently, monotonously, incessantly. The snow covers the
streets like a downy carpet, spreads itself like a sheet over the
roofs, fills up the cracks in the walls, heaps itself upon the
window-sills, envelops the iron window-bars, and hangs in festoons
from the gutters and eaves.

Out of doors it must be as cold as ever, but the room is growing
rapidly warmer, and Doretta, climbing on a chair, has the satisfaction
of announcing that the mercury has risen eleven degrees.

"Yes, dear," her father replies, "and the clock is striking eleven
too. Run and tell them to get breakfast ready."

Doretta runs off obediently, but reappears in a moment.

"Daddy, daddy, what do you suppose has happened? The dining-room
stove won't draw, and the room is all full of smoke!"

"Then let us breakfast here, child."

This excellent suggestion is joy to the soul of Doretta, who
hastens to carry the news to the kitchen, and then, in a series of
journeys back and forth from the dining-room to the study, transports
with her own hands the knives, forks, plates, tablecloth, and napkins,
and, with the man-servant's aid, lays them out upon one of her papa's
tables. How merry she is! How completely the cloud has vanished that
darkened her brow a few hours earlier! And how well she acquits
herself of her household duties!

Doretta is undeniably the very image of her mother. She too was
just such an excellent housekeeper, a model of order, of neatness, of
propriety. And she was pretty, like Doretta, even though she did not
possess the fair hair and captivating eyes of Signora Evelina.

The man-servant who brings in the breakfast is accompanied by a
newcomer, the cat Melanio, who is always present at Doretta's meals.
The cat Melanio is old; he has known Doretta ever since she was born,
and he honors her with his protection. Every morning he mews at her
door, as though to inquire if she has slept well; every evening he
keeps her company until it is time for her to go to bed. Whenever she
goes out he speeds her with a gentle purr; whenever he hears her come
in he hurries to meet her and rubs himself against her legs. In the
morning, and at the midday meal, when she takes it at home, he sits
beside her chair and silently waits for the scraps from her plate. The
cat Melanio, however, is not in the habit of visiting Signor Odoardo's
study, and shows a certain surprise at finding himself there. Signor
Odoardo, for his part, receives his new guest with some diffidence;
but Doretta, intervening in Melanio's favor, undertakes to answer for
his good conduct.

It is long since Doretta has eaten with so much appetite. When she
has finished her breakfast, she clears the table as deftly and
promptly as she had laid it, and in a few moments Signor Odoardo's
study has resumed its wonted appearance. Only the cat Melanio remains,
comfortably established by the stove, on the understanding that he is
to be left there as long as he is not troublesome.

The continual coming and going has made the room grow colder. The
mercury has dropped perceptibly, and Doretta, to make it rise again,
empties nearly the whole wood-basket into the stove.

How it snows, how it snows! No longer in detached flakes, but as
though an openwork white cloth were continuously unrolled before one's
eyes. Signor Odoardo begins to think that it will be impossible for
him to call on Signora Evelina. True, it is only a step, but he would
sink into the snow up to his knees. After all, it is only twelve
o'clock. It may stop snowing later. Doretta is struck by a luminous
thought:

"What if I were to answer grandmamma's letter?"

In another moment Doretta is seated at her father's desk, in his
arm- chair, two cushions raising her to the requisite height, her legs
dangling into space, the pen suspended in her hand, and her eyes fixed
upon a sheet of ruled paper, containing thus far but two words: Dear
Grandmamma.

Signor Odoardo, leaning against the stove, watches his daughter
with a smile.

It appears that at last Doretta has discovered a way of beginning
her letter, for she re-plunges the pen into the inkstand, lowers her
hand to the sheet of paper, wrinkles her forehead and sticks out her
tongue.

After several minutes of assiduous toil she raises her head and
asks:

"What shall I say to grandmamma about her invitation to go and
spend a few weeks with her?"

"Tell her that you can't go now, but that she may expect you in the
spring."

"With you, papa?"

"With me, yes," Signor Odoardo answers mechanically.

Yet if, in the meantime, he engages himself to Signora Evelina,
this visit to his mother-in-law will become rather an awkward
business.

"There—I've finished!" Doretta cries with an air of triumph.

But the cry is succeeded by another, half of anguish, half of rage.

"What's the matter now?"

"A blot!"

"Let me see?...You little goose, what HAVE you done?...You've
ruined the letter now!"

Doretta, having endeavored to remove the ink-spot by licking it,
has torn the paper.

"Oh, dear, I shall have to copy it out now," she says, in a
mortified tone.

"You can copy it this evening. Bring it here, and let me look at
it...Not bad,—not bad at all. A few letters to be added, and a few to
be taken out; but, on the whole, for a chit of your size, it's fairly
creditable. Good girl!"

Doretta rests upon her laurels, playing with her doll Nini. She
dresses Nini in her best gown, and takes her to call on the cat,
Melanio.

The cat, Melanio, who is dozing with half-open eyes, is somewhat
bored by these attentions. Raising himself on his four paws, he arches
his flexible body, and then rolls himself up into a ball, turning his
back upon his visitor.

"Dear me, Melanio is not very polite to-day," says Doretta,
escorting the doll back to the sofa. "But you mustn't be offended;
he's very seldom impolite. I think it must be the weather; doesn't the
weather make you sleepy too, Nini? ...Come, let's take a nap; go
by-bye, baby, go by-bye."

Nini sleeps. Her head rests upon a cushion, her little rag and
horse- hair body is wrapped in a woollen coverlet, her lids are
closed; for Nini raises or lowers her lids according to the position
of her body.

Signor Odoardo looks at the clock and then glances out of the
window. It is two o'clock and the snow is still falling.

At this point Doretta, seeing that her father is not listening to
her, breaks off her recitation. Signor Odoardo has, in fact, closed
the book upon his forefinger, and is looking elsewhere.

"Well, Doretta," he absently inquires, "why don't you go on?"

"I'm not going to say any more of it," she answers sullenly.

"Why, you cross-patch! What's the matter?"

The little girl, who had been seated on a low stool, has risen to
her feet and now sees why her papa has not been attending to her. The
snow is falling less thickly, and the fair head of Signora Evelina has
appeared behind the window-panes over the way.

Brave little woman! She has actually opened the window, and is
clearing the snow off the sill with a fire-shovel. Her eyes meet
Signor Odoardo's; she smiles and shakes her head, as though to say:
What hateful weather!

He would be an ill-mannered boor who should not feel impelled to
say a word to the dauntless Signor Evelina. Signor Odoardo, who is not
an ill- mannered boor, yields to the temptation of opening the window
for a moment.

"Bravo, Signora Evelina! I see you are not afraid of the snow."

"Oh, Signor Odoardo, what fiendish weather!...But, if I am not
mistaken, that is Doretta with you...How do you do, Doretta?"

"Doretta, come here and say how do you do to the lady."

"No, no—let her be, let her be! Children catch cold so easily—you
had better shut the window. I suppose there is no hope of seeing you
to- day?"

The two windows are closed simultaneously, but this time Signora
Evelina does not disappear. She is sitting there, close to the window,
and it snows so lightly now that her wonderful profile is outlined as
clearly as possible against the pane. Good heavens, how beautiful she
is!

Signer Odoardo walks up and down the room, in the worst of humors.
He feels that it is wrong not to go and see the fascinating widow, and
that to go and see her would be still more wrong. The cloud has
settled again upon Doretta's forehead, the same cloud that darkened it
in the morning.

Not a word is said of La Fontaine's fable. Instead, Signor Odoardo
grumbles irritably:

"This blessed room is as cold as ever."

"Why shouldn't it be," Doretta retorts with a touch of asperity,
"when you open the window every few minutes?"

"Oho," Signer Odoardo says to himself, "it is time to have this
matter out."

And, going up to Doretta, he takes her by the hand, leads her to
the sofa, and lifts her on his knee.

"Now, then, Doretta, why is it that you are so disagreeable to
Signora Evelina?"

The little girl, not knowing what to answer, grows red and
embarrassed.

"What has Signora Evelina done to you?" her father continues.

"She hasn't done anything to me."

"And yet you don't like her."

Profound silence.

"And SHE likes you so much!"

"I don't care if she does!"

"You naughty child!...And what if, one of these days, you had to
live with Signora Evelina?"

"I won't live with her—I won't live with her!" the child bursts
out.

"Now you are talking foolishly," Signor Odoardo admonishes her in a
severe tone, setting her down from his knee.

She bursts into passionate weeping.

"Come, Doretta, come...Is this the way you keep your daddy
company?...Enough of this, Doretta."

But, say what he pleases, Doretta must have her cry. Her brown eyes
are swimming in tears, her little breast heaves, her voice is broken
by sobs.

"What ridiculous whims!" Signer Odoardo exclaims, throwing his head
back against the sofa cushions.

Signor Odoardo is unjust, and, what is worse, he does not believe
what he is saying. He knows that this is no whim of Doretta's. He
knows it better than the child herself, who would probably find it
difficult to explain what she is undergoing. It is at once the
presentiment of a new danger and the renewal of a bygone sorrow.
Doretta was barely six years old when her mother died, and yet her
remembrance is indelibly impressed upon the child's mind. And now it
seems as though her mother were dying again.

"When you have finished crying, Doretta, you may come here," Signor
Odoardo says.

Doretta, crouching in a corner of the room, cries less vehemently,
but has not yet finished crying. Just like the weather outside,—it
snows less heavily, but it still snows.

Signor Odoardo covers his eyes with his hand.

How many thoughts are thronging through his head, how many
affections are contending in his heart! If he could but banish the
vision of Signora Evelina—but he tries in vain. He is haunted by
those blue eyes, by that persuasive smile, that graceful and
harmonious presence. He has but to say the word, and he knows that she
will be his, to brighten his solitary home, and fill it with life and
love. Her presence would take ten years from his age, he would feel as
he did when he was betrothed for the first time. And yet—no; it would
not be quite like the first time.

He is not the same man that he was then, and she, THE OTHER, ah,
how different SHE was from the Signora Evelina! How modest and shy she
was! How girlishly reserved, even in the expression of her love! How
beautiful were her sudden blushes, how sweet the droop of her long,
shyly-lowered lashes! He had known her first in the intimacy of her
own home, simple, shy, a good daughter and a good sister, as she was
destined to be a good wife and mother. For a while he had loved her in
silence, and she had returned his love. One day, walking beside her in
the garden, he had seized her hand with sudden impetuosity, and
raising it to his lips had said, "I care for you so much!" and she,
pale and trembling, had run to her mother's arms, crying out, "Oh, how
happy I am!"

Ah, those dear days—those dear days! He was a poet then; with the
accent of sincerest passion he whispered in his love's ear:

"I love thee more than all the world beside,
My only faith and hope thou art,
My God, my country, and my bride—
Sole love of this unchanging heart!"

Very bad poetry, but deliciously thrilling to his young betrothed.
Oh, the dear, dear days! Oh, the long hours that pass like a flash in
delightful talk, the secrets that the soul first reveals to itself in
revealing them to the beloved, the caresses longed for and yet half
feared, the lovers' quarrels, the tears that are kissed away, the
shynesses, the simplicity, the abandonment of a pure and passionate
love—who may hope to know you twice in a lifetime?

No, Signora Evelina can never restore what he has lost to Signor
Odoardo. No, this self-possessed widow, who, after six months of
mourning, has already started on the hunt for a second husband, cannot
inspire him with the faith that he felt in THE OTHER. Ah, first-loved
women, why is it that you must die? For the dead give no kisses, no
caresses, and the living long to be caressed and kissed.

Who talks of kisses? Here is one that has alit, all soft and warm,
on Signor Odoardo's lips, rousing him with a start.—Ah!...Is it you,
Doretta?—It is Doretta, who says nothing, but who is longing to make
it up with her daddy. She lays her cheek against his, he presses her
little head close, lest she should escape from him. He too is
silent—what can he say to her?

It is growing dark, and the eyes of the cat Melanio begin to
glitter in the corner by the stove. The man-servant knocks and asks if
he is to bring the lamp.

"Make up the fire first," Signor Odoardo says.

The wood crackles and snaps, and sends up showers of sparks; then
it bursts into flame, blazing away with a regular, monotonous sound,
like the breath of a sleeping giant. In the dusk the firelight flashes
upon the walls, brings out the pattern of the wall-paper, and travels
far enough to illuminate a corner of the desk. The shadows lengthen
and then shorten again, thicken and then shrink; everything in the
room seems to be continually changing its size and shape. Signor
Odoardo, giving free rein to his thoughts, evokes the vision of his
married life, sees the baby's cradle, recalls her first cries and
smiles, feels again his dying wife's last kiss, and hears the last
word upon her lips,—DORETTA. No, no, it is impossible that he should
ever do anything to make his Doretta unhappy! And yet he is not sure
of resisting Signora Evelina's wiles; he is almost afraid that, when
he sees his enchantress on the morrow, all his strong resolves may
take flight. There is but one way out of it.

"Doretta," says Signor Odoardo.

"Father?"

"Are you going to copy out your letter to your grandmamma this
evening?"

"Yes, father."

"Wouldn't you rather go and see your grandmamma yourself?"

"With whom?" the child falters anxiously, her little heart beating
a frantic tattoo as she awaits his answer.

"With me, Doretta."

"With YOU, daddy?" she exclaims, hardly daring to believe her ears.

"Yes, with me; with your daddy."

"Oh, daddy, DADDY!" she cries, her little arms about his neck, her
kisses covering his face. "Oh, daddy, my own dear daddy! When shall we
start?"

"To-morrow morning, if you're not afraid of the snow."

"Why not now? Why not at once?"

"Gently—gently. Good Lord, doesn't the child want her dinner
first?"

And Signor Odoardo, gently detaching himself from his daughter's
embrace, rises and rings for the lamp. Then, instinctively, he glances
once more towards the window. In the opposite house all is dark, and
Signora Evelina's profile is no longer outlined against the pane. The
weather is still threatening, and now and then a snowflake falls. The
servant closes the shutters and draws the curtains, so that no profane
gaze may penetrate into the domestic sanctuary.

"We had better dine in here," Signor Odoardo says. "The dining-room
must be as cold as Greenland."

Doretta, meanwhile, is convulsing the kitchen with the noisy
announcement of the impending journey. At first she is thought to be
joking, but when she establishes the fact that she is speaking
seriously, it is respectfully pointed out to her that the master of
the house must be crazy. To start on a journey in the depth of winter,
and in such weather! If at least they were to wait for a fine day!

But what does Doretta care for the comments of the kitchen? She is
beside herself with joy. She sings, she dances about the room, and
breaks off every moment or two to give her father a kiss. Then she
pours out the fulness of her emotion upon the cat Melanio and the doll
Nini, promising the latter to bring her back a new frock from Milan.

At dinner she eats little and talks incessantly of the journey,
asking again and again what time it is, and at what time they are to
start.

"Are you afraid of missing the train?" Signor Odoardo asks with a
smile.

And yet, though he dissembles his impatience, it is as great as
hers. He longs to go away, far away. Perhaps he may not return until
spring. He orders his luggage packed for an absence of two months.

Doretta goes to bed early, but all night long she tosses about
under the bed-clothes, waking her nurse twenty times to ask: "Is it
time to get up?"

Signor Odoardo, too, is awake when the man-servant comes to call
him the next morning at six o'clock.

"What sort of a day is it?"

"Very bad, sir—just such another as yesterday. In fact, if I might
make the suggestion, sir, if it's not necessary for you to start
to-day—"

"It is, Angelo. Absolutely necessary."

At the station there are only a few sleepy, depressed-looking
travellers wrapped in furs. They are all grumbling about the weather,
about the cold, about the earliness of the hour, and declaring that
nothing but the most urgent business would have got them out of bed at
that time of day. There is but one person in the station who is all
liveliness and smiles—Doretta.

The first-class compartment in which Signor Odoardo and his
daughter find themselves is bitterly cold, in spite of foot-warmers,
but Doretta finds the temperature delicious, and, if she dared, would
open the windows for the pleasure of looking out.

"Are you happy, Doretta?"

"Oh, SO happy!"

Ten years earlier, on a pleasanter day, but also in winter, Signor
Odoardo had started on his wedding-journey. Opposite him had sat a
young girl, who looked as much like Doretta as a woman can look like a
child; a pretty, sedate young girl, oh, so sweetly, tenderly in love
with Signor Odoardo. And as the train started he had asked her the
same question:

Oh, no; Signora Evelina has a perfect disposition and a delightful
home. The perfect disposition enables her not to take things too
seriously, the delightful home affords her a thousand distractions.
Its windows do not all look towards Signor Odoardo's residence. One of
them, for example, commands a little garden belonging to a worthy
bachelor who smokes his pipe there on pleasant days. Signora Evelina
finds the worthy bachelor to her taste, and the worthy bachelor, who
is an average- adjuster by profession, admires Signora Evelina's eyes,
and considers her handsomely and solidly enough put together to rank A
No. 1 on Lloyd's registers.

The result is that the bachelor now and then looks up at the
window, and the Signora Evelina now and then looks down at the garden.
The weather not being propitious to out-of-door conversation, Signora
Evelina at length invites her neighbor to come and pay her a visit.
Her neighbor hesitates and she renews the invitation. How can one
resist such a charming woman? And what does one visit signify? Nothing
at all. The excellent average-adjuster has every reason to be pleased
with his reception, the more so as Signora Evelina actually gives him
leave to bring his pipe the next time he comes. She adores the smell
of a pipe. Signora Evelina is an ideal woman, just the wife for a
business man who had not positively made up his mind to remain single.
And as to that, muses the average-adjuster, have I ever positively
made up my mind to remain single, and if I have, who is to prevent my
changing it?

And so it comes to pass that when, after an absence of three
months, Signor Odoardo returns home with Doretta, he receives notice
of the approaching marriage of Signora Evelina Chiocci, widow
Ramboldi, with Signor Archimede Fagiuolo.